


River Water

by Trash_Queen



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: airbender!daud, all around good person! samuel, and powerful lil emily kaldwin, dad corvo too, firebender!corvo, firebender!emily, more characters coming sometime evenually!!! :'), waterbender!martin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 08:28:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7567177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash_Queen/pseuds/Trash_Queen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jessamine dies, there is a great shift. Daud and Billie feel it in their bones, Delilah in her brush, Martin in the stone and metal bones of Holger Square's Abbey and Corvo sees and sees and sees it. </p><p>(I played Dishonored roughly around the same time I re-watched AtLA so here's this mash-up AU thing I cooked up since then)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Note and Key

**Author's Note:**

> I love dishonored and i love AtLA and i love crossover-type shit sooooooo here it is??  
> there's some violence but i dont think it's gratuitous??? either way u never know, yknow
> 
> this is mostly about martin, daud and billie and dad!corvo and samuel at some point probably because they're all close to my heart (or something)

When Jessamine dies, there is a great shift. Daud and Billie feel it in their bones, Delilah in her brush, Martin in the stone and metal bones of Holger Square's Abbey and Corvo sees and sees and sees it, playing over and over again behind his eyelids in Coldridge. An apt name, as it _is_ built on a particularly cold ridge. He's kept in an even colder cell, and he can't feel the fire beneath his skin or in his brain anymore. Just ice and cold and Jessamine dying, again and again and again. Burrows and Campbell do not appreciate the distance he has put between his mind and his body, the care he doesn't seem to have for their torture.

When the key and the note come hidden beneath that moldy loaf of bread, he seizes the chance.

Coldridge is half-destroyed by the fire that bubbles back up beneath his skin again, and the whole mount is shaken by the explosions before he dives into the sewers. The river water boils around him.

There's revenge to be had, and a young Empress to be found.

 

* * *

Emily feels the anger and fear pull up fire within her. Her skin burns the first few whalers who grab her, the heat in her blood makes it almost impossible to bend. The glass in the old rooms at the Flooded District shatter when lightening crackles out of her fingers, and eventually someone in a red coat comes and snatches it up, flinging it back out away from them whenever she hurls it to them. They take their mask off and kneel down by her, dark skin and hair and a tired frown on _her_ face, and the lightening and fire might be from Emily's fingertips and mouth but they don't serve her anymore.

When she is ten years old, her mother dies and she is given to two terrible men and kept in a terrible place, and she has the face of that woman and the assassins in their red and blue coats to fuel her fire and her lightening when she burns half of The Golden Cat to the ground with Corvo at her side and leaves the bodies of those horrible, _horrible_ twins charred behind her. She didn't know how, but she knew they were dead, and she knew it was by Corvo's hand. (Morgan and Custis' bodies would be identified, barely- one red and bloody and bloated with steam, and the other one a charred corpse with its' head blown off, known by virtue of process of elimination. Emily thinks it's sort of funny years later when she thinks over it- 'process of elimination', indeed.)


	2. Salt Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daud would make a great dad if he didn't fuck up so damn terribly

Daud almost thinks they should have kept the young empress. It would have brought Corvo's rage down upon them a lot sooner, to be sure- no one, not the stealthiest assassins or most skilled blood or fire or earth or air benders had stopped him, had even seen him- he had skipped by them all, saving the rage and heat in him for Daud alone.

Nevertheless, he had watched when Billie took care of Emily Kaldwin, seen how impressive she was at a mere ten years of age. She was wasted with those twins and on nobility, and wast _ing_ in a place such as the Cat, with nary a soul there to train her.

If he made it out of this alive, he would endeavor to teach her, perhaps. Or to do right by her and other poor, masterless souls and grow them into fine men and women. He could open a school, and what a laugh riot that would be. He readied his blade and breathed deep as Corvo spun back into the physical world to destroy him, smelling the ozone and fire in the air. He had some sort of soft streak in him, something in his nature that loved to nurture. It was something he rarely outwardly indulged in, being just a teacher, and now it never would be, if he got what was coming to him. He had thrown the worlds out of balance, and no amount of pulling fire-breathing and rock-hurling gutter snipes out of their heaps of trash with good intention would undo that.

He had survived Billie and Delilah and the terrible pair the two of them made, but he did not think he would survive Corvo. Air fed flame, after all, and neither could be tempered by steel or gunpowder.

When Corvo left him alive- winded ( _ha-ha_ ), burned and bruised but _alive_ , he felt that the universe had done him and Corvo a great injustice. What great spirit or sense of mercy had moved such a man to come here, and leave naught but a few bodies and _him_ in his wake, only to leave with his damned _key?_ He could have just as easily blown the sewer door open.

Daud had no fire in his soul anymore, but he knew that, whether in Gristol or any of the other isles, whether an assassin or nomad or unremarkable old man, he would burn either way. He might as well burn somewhere remotely pleasant.

He and the few whalers left made for Serkonos the next day. When they got out to sea, the air was salty, cool and damp on their skin as they sailed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little more context: different classes of people employ different styles of bending. There are few people taught by true masters of the craft anymore who aren't rich or willing to be nomads (air nomads are still a thing), so generally people fall into a few different categories: people who learn in the army, which is purely combative in nature, and is where corvo's bending style comes from and prooobably daud's too; self-taught, which is generally seen being used by gangs, street kids and regular folk who adapt their bending to suit their different needs; and really flowery, demure bending for people in polite/high society.
> 
> i also like this string of thought that daud is a total hardass but like, really cares for the kids he takes in


	3. Whiskey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there is no substitute for good whisky and frenemies at one in the morning under a full moon

The death of High Overseer Campbell was a great gift to Teague Martin. One that he knew was coming, of course- and in that way it was almost like a present you knew you were getting, still excited and waiting and wanting but very much lacking in surprise beyond what was polite. Being declared High Overseer was much the same way. He sat facing the window in his office, the new red coat folded and ignored on his desk in favor for a glass of Morlish Whiskey. He wasn't one given to sentiment or to sappy, pleasant reminiscing (not that the years he had spent in Morley were at all sappy _or_ pleasant), but it was a far sight better than Old Dunwall. Gristol, and Dunwall in better times, had a particular knack for potato-and-grain liquors and full-bodied ales, but the true masters of brewing whiskey were in Morely.

Drink had made his head float quite nicely away from whatever troubles the stocks in Holger and their little Loyalist conspiracy crock had cooked up, and the full moon made his blood sing. He wasn't someone inclined to use his particular gifts anymore, at this point in time, but he still felt his best when the moon was bright and round in the sky, when the molecules in air itself changed and particular circumstances were tilted over to his favor. The very universe was for him on these nights, and every part in him down to his atoms felt it.

He had completely mastered his gift for bloodbending some years ago- gone from controlling rats and dogs with wide sweeps of his arm under full moons to guardsmen at high noon without lifting a finger- but the moon still favored him, and sometimes a little planetary favor made all the difference.

Like when, for example, someone whose blood and bones he didn't often feel materialized on his carpet.

"What do you want at this hour, Daud?"

He received no answer. When he turned to look, the man was getting himself a drink out of the wet bar. Three fingers of the Morlish whiskey, all tossed back at once.

The missing three fingers of whiskey were quickly replaced, and Martin noticed that the bottle was nearing half-gone with some disappointment.

Daud came to sit in the chair across the desk, keeping his eyes on the whiskey rather than anywhere else.

"Enjoy that one. That's the last bottle I have left," he frowned, and Daud scoffed.

"Your'e high overseer, you can get more whenever you want."

"Yes, but I don't _want_ to have to get more of it."

"Sticking close to stricture now? 'Restrict the rampant hunger'," He sighed. "Don't be foolish, that sort of drivel is still beneath you." Daud drank from the glass.

" _You_ don't be churlish," Martin took a sip of his whiskey now. " _That_ sort of drivel is beneath even _you_."

They were silent for a while, Martin watching Daud and Daud watching his glass.

"Why are you here?"

"Not good enough to simply visit you anymore, _high overseer_?" Daud saw his decidedly unamused look and sighed. "What does it matter? I'm here to drink in silence, we aren't here to talk personally. We aren't friends."

"You can drink in silence in your _own_ office. You have all the whiskey you could want there, and company or no besides. Or," Stopping Daud from lifting his glass again was less than child's play. Martin made him put it down entirely and sit back in the chair. It creaked under the effort, and he could feel how much Daud pushed back, how he tried to lift even a finger. The whole of him remained plastered to the seat. It had to be uncomfortable. "Is it simply one of _those_ nights?"

Daud couldn't lift a finger against him now, much less speak.

"Are you feeling guilty about raising your blade against the late Empress, or throwing her daughter to men who are more wolfhounds than man?" He released him, let him pitch forward and heave against the desk when the body that had been pushing against an unbendable force was allowed free reign of itself again. "You made your bed, Daud. Drink your whiskey and lay in it. I want no part in your self-pity."

Daud's had returned to his glass but he did not drink from it.

"…Billie betrayed me."

Martin's expression went from unreadable to surprised. He replied with an underwhelming "Oh." He had thought Daud's underlings unshakable in their devotion to him.

"I- there was a witch, a woman named-"

"Delilah." Martin cut in. "I know of her. I felt her presence disappear from the spirit world. Did you kill her?" He asked the question like he was asking about the weather.

"I didn't kill her," Still watching that drink instead of sipping at it. Martin took another sip of his. "I grounded her. Cut her ties to the spirit world and left her to rot in Brigmore with her coven."

"Does Billie know? I assume they were working together."

Daud shrugged.

"Don't know. She wasn't there." He finally put the glass to his mouth. "Does it matter?"

After a moment, Martin simply shrugged. "Suppose not."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'churlish' is my new favorite word
> 
> more background! : the abbey of the everyman and the outsider still exist! They still hate each other!! but the outsider doesn't give people bending powers, just extra luck/abilities/ties to the spirit world with his mark and the gathering of runes. the abbey and the strictures are still basically the same, but instead of just denying the outsider or any sort of spirit world shenanigans they endeavor to act as spiritual guides for the general population and disavow any bending within their ranks publicly and disavow things like bloodbending (which is very illegal) in general, although there's like, not much they can do about it lol
> 
> the music boxes are still a thing too, and they still function to keep away the outsider and ~evil spirit magic~
> 
> i also like this train of thought i saw somewhere that martin and daud have some sorta history together


	4. A Sketch and a Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The universe just loved proving daud wrong

The first time Daud meets Martin, it's near the flooded district, it's night out, it's raining, and it's violent. Of course it's violent, though- there's no other way for people to meet in Dunwall if not violently.

A mission had gone particularly sour. A barrister, in the new financial district (or what was coming to pass for it, anyway), had been sentenced to death at Daud's hand by some sort of jealous rival- he wasn't much for the particular story then. They paid a lot of coin, and a lot of coin was something he and his whalers had desperate need of. It was supposed to be simple, straightforward- the house wasn't particularly secure, not more so than normal. His downfall had been in assuming that everything _would_ be simple, and not accounting for variables of the human variety.

The barristers sister, come to visit from the countryside with her husband, burst in on Daud when he was pulling his blade from the man's throat. They had tumbled in with a great big _"Surprise, Alfie!"_ , and what a surprise it must have been for them. He would have stopped to appreciate the irony if it wasn't for the rousing of the guards, which meant the rousing of the overseers, which meant him trying to outfox men in blue uniforms and angry masks on his way back to hiding. Transversing through the spirit world, after all, only got one so far. Push it _too_ much, and one ends up frozen at the bottom of a Tyvian pond or some-such nonsense, most likely to the delight of The Outsider.

He had thought he had made it far enough away, slipping from rooftop to rooftop and sicking to shadows and high chimneys, almost home, when he turned and noticed one of the sodden little overseers had followed him. Poor man, he mused- he knew not what he did. Perhaps hoping to glean some glory from a fight with the Knife of Dunwall and come back with at most his head and at least a limb to throw to those hounds, in whatever fantasy the zealots liked to play out in their heads. He had been fairly stealthy about it, too, managing to follow him across the rooftops. It was the unexpected _squelch_ from misplacing rubber sole on roof tile that had given him away. A small misstep, but a life-ending one. His whalers would have done much better, even the novices.

Blades were drawn. This one's life would have to end quickly, what a pity. He had some potential. They ended up sliding across the rooftop, the Overseer putting up more of a fight than Daud had expected. He had gone this mission alone, had no water benders with him, no one to blood bend this one into submission, and it quickly became obvious this fight was going to drag on longer than he was willing to indulge. This man had to be disposed of. Quickly.

Hubris was usually the downfall of many a man, especially the zealot, and Daud decided to prey on that. He let himself be driven back a ways, almost to the edge, and left an absurdly large opening through which the man could easily cut him in half. He would have been a prideful fool to take it and a total fool not to, and a smarter man to realize that it was a ruse.

Daud bet wisely. He bet the Overseer would be a prideful and foolish man, and he was. The Overseer's sword swung towards him when he dropped as if to sweep a leg under him, and a sharp burst of air followed the arc of his heel. The Overseer was knocked off his feet and nearly slid off the roof. Daud was not a prideful or foolish man- he intended to take the opening he made.

He usually preferred the blade first, and poison second to that- quick and efficient and well within the abilities of bender and non-bender alike, as far as killing went. This way was quieter, and in many ways more terrifying. The Overseer mask had came off in the attack- behind it was the face of a man about the same age as him, perhaps a few years his junior. A determined set to his jaw and danger in his eyes. He knew he had made a mistake and it would cost him his life. He didn't seem to care as he scrambled back to his feet, only to have the air pulled out of his lungs. He would pass out soon, and suffocate soon after that. A lackluster end, but if he was as old as Daud suspected, it would have been sufficiently decent in length if not worldly experience.

Then, of course, there was the proverbial wrench thrown right into his plan. A moment later, he could not move. He could not move and he could not bend, and the man he was about to kill was crouched in front of him, hands up and hair in his face and sucking air back into his lungs. This Overseer was a blood bender.

And a powerful one-the moon was waning just past half full, and this one had control of every muscle and organ in his body with what seemed very little effort. The tide of their battle had shifted, and it suddenly looked very, very bad for him.

"Never would have pegged the Knife of Dunwall for an air bender," He ground out.

 _Never would have pegged an Overseer for a heretic blood bender_ , Daud wanted to reply.

"As it stands, I'm afraid I can't let you live. Not now. This is quite a secret I have to keep- perhaps if you hadn't blown my mask off I could have let you live."

Daud very much doubted that.

"Enjoy the spirit wastes, _Knife_." The Overseer tightened his hold on Daud's blood, twisted until it was painful, and swung him over towards the edge.

It was his great fortune that a peal of lightening interrupted them, splintering up the roof beneath their feet and hurling chunks of it through the air. He was chucked gracelessly down into the remaining roof. He squinted through the rain and saw the red coat of his second perched on an adjacent chimney. Billie Lurk, ever vigilant, and not wasting a drop of precious time loosening a second bolt of lightening. He took advantage of the momentary distraction to shoot the man with a sleep dart. He crumpled onto the roof.

"Why didn't you just kill him?" She asked when he transversed to stand beside the chimney.

Daud took a moment to adjust his gloves, and right himself, not taking his eye off the Overseer as he did.

"Because he's a dangerous man." He said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And like all dangerous men, he can be useful. Especially when you know their secrets. That one could be a great asset. Learn all you can of him."

He could hear how Billie rolled her eyes as she sighed. Although she was his second, she was just newly made so, and she was still somewhat young and still somewhat… impulsive. She would need to learn better when to stay her hand in the future, how to bend when and where brute force and killing were not needed. They transversed back to the base together, Billie chatting lightly about needing to come save you again old man, you're not slipping are you? And Daud brushing the jibes aside.

A couple days later, Billie would return with a sketch and a name clipped to a few sheafs of paper: Teague Martin. The Overseer who could bend blood. Only with the Abbey ten or so years- short, when most new recruits were mere infants- supposedly hailing from the rocky island of Morley, and nothing known of him before that.

This one, Daud thought, would be a useful man to have in his pocket.

 

Things, of course, never quite ended up that way.


	5. Rain and Clover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teague Martin is a son of Morely for sure

When Teague Martin was very young, his mother had found him snapping little tendrils of water out of puddles at the landlord's pigs. She scolded him for scaring the gentle roly-poly lumps and their stubby little legs before picking him up to rest on her hip and carry him back into the house.

A few years later, when he is somewhere between ten and eleven, the Morley uprising occurs, and the violence ripples out from the cities to the smallest farms in the countryside, and the Emperors' troops marched through the town square in town. They had been shopping, and the sound of jackboots had echoed off the buildings. Rifle fire followed, and the whole marketplace devolved into a battleground. He very distinctly remembered women and children and elderly throwing open their windows, hurling flower pots and plates and brick loosened from around the sills at the soldiers. The rest came back very quickly, in disjointed flashes- fire blazing out overhead, earth shifting and bucking below his feet, and his mother grabbed his hand and they ran. They didn't notice the guards that had broken off to follow them, to follow others who had tried to run. They made it as far as the edge of town before a shot caught his mother in the leg and he didn't know what to do, she crashed into the mud and gravel road and he was ten years old and his mother had been shot and the soldiers were yelling behind them and _he didn't know what to do-_

It had rained the night before and was still drizzling now and he wouldn't let his mother die here, not by Gristol's filthy hands, and the water let easily under his hands. It was like the pigs, it was exactly like the pigs and _they were pigs_. But snapping whips of water at animals and snapping them at armed men was different. There were three soldiers following them, three pigs and he couldn't kill them all. His mother shoved him away and told him to run. Bullets took her leg from her and they would take her precious ten-eleven-year-old water bender from her too and she wouldn't let them. She told him to run, and he did.

Years later, when he was seventeen, he would learn how to pull water from clover and branch and stream and puddle alike. He would spend the time between tumbling from town to town, running from guard and loyalist alike until he took up with a gang of young patriots, and they didn't have a care for politics and it wasn't politics to remove Gristol's men and guns by force- it was a necessity, it was the only way to live. A life breathing free Morlish air and working as free Morley men or there was to be no life for them at all.

Gristol crushed the uprising a few months and hundreds of molotov cocktails and dead bodies later with the assassination of their Empress, and Martin decided that idealism in politics meant nothing. He went from freedom fighting to hiding out in the woods, robbing the occasional soldier and poor farmers to being snatched up by a band of highwaymen.

He had thought the small camp an easy target, five old men huddled around the fire sipping chicory and content in the warmth of their fire and emptiness of the wood. That was when he first learned of blood benders. It was a particularly… unpleasant feeling. A man with a weathered face that made him look twice his age pulled him by his blood to the fire, forcing him to kneel while another set a pistol to the base of his skull, and yet another asked him a question:

"Do you want to live, boy?"

He managed to grind out an angry ' _fuck you, old man_ ' and braced himself for the bullet.

The hold on his blood was released and he got a mouthful of ash and sand while the old men laughed.

"Thisun's a son o' Morely fer sure," One of them said, and they pulled him up and sat him down and pushed a mug into his hands, the man with the face older than he was bending a thick stream of chicory into it. It tasted like shit, and he said as much, and they all laughed.

They had been driven from their old lives first by war and now by famine. Two used to be farmers, one a fisherman, one an old sea captain, and the blood bender a whaler. His said name was Walt. Martin snorted and said it sounded like a stupid name- Walt the Whaler. He got a slap on the back of his head and a 'don't disrespect yer elders' for his trouble.

Walt taught him how to water bend during the day, how to turn it into glassy ice beneath an enemy's foot or how to slip tendrils of it into unsuspecting victims lungs, to change the ebb and flow of a river and how to plug bullet holes and deep cuts temporarily with thick frost. They would rob rich mens' carriages and convoys of cash and imported crop at night, and later in his life Martin would recall with fondness the times after, spent counting their loot or gorging themselves on Tyvian wine and Serkonian fruit and cheese around the fire, the old seamen telling tales and asking Walt or Captain (as he had wished to be called) about old scars or strange, sometimes risque tattoos. One time their haul consisted of coin and soda bread and bone charms, and before Martin could even tear into the bread they replaced everything in the sack and found the woman they had taken it from to return it. When he asked why Walt simply said, "Y'don't mess with the spirits boy, and y'don't _ever_ steal from witches."

A few years later, after a particularly bad raid on some unfortunate loyalist sod's dying farm (his wife had pulled a shotgun from under their table and he had punched streams of fire towards them- Martin had come out of it with a wounded side and burnt arms, and one of the farmers and the sea captain with burns across their backs), Walt had told him about the abilities of some water benders to heal, and that now was his time to try it. Martin pulled the water from a creek, a bend in it beneath a willow that Walt said was where the spirits danced on the edge of their world and would aid those who were worthy (Martin rolled his eyes and dismissed it as more old man's superstitious crock) and slid it over the wounds. The men had slouched forward and sighed at the coolness of it, but try as he might there was no healing beneath it and his hands. He threw it back in the river in favor of bandages and salve, and the next few nights there was no raid. Walt walked them away from camp to a small clearing close by.

"Had hope fer yeh t'be a healer," He frowned. "Then least y'have some useful skill."

Martin wanted to point out that he _had_ useful skills, but Walt was suspiciously grave tonight.

"Seems you're'n the same boat I am, not t'make a joke of it. Moon's full, n' yeh become a powerful young man." He sounded appraising. "Think it's time for y't'learn how t'blood bend."

Martin would be forever glad afterwords that he was not a healer. He went from rats to dogs to people quickly, and in a few years time graduated from people under the full moon to plush vacationing nobles at midday.

 

Years and years later, when Walt and the others had gone (by way of sepsis, the gun, jail-then-execution and two of them to old age respectively), he would scrape his accent from his speech and carve himself a place first in Gristol's army and then in the Abbey's ranks and then in the Loyalists' conspiracy (the name made him want to laugh a bitter laugh and he felt and his gut drop a little. The irony, at least, would not be lost on him).

When Havelock would hand him the cup of poison, trying so desperately to hide its' true purpose convincingly from him and Pendleton, he thought briefly about pulling at Havelock's blood. Pendleton, in his messy state, had already drunk his. Whether he knew or not didn't matter now- Tyvian bloodroot was a fast and nasty way to die, and from the quantity he suspected Havelock had dosed the Old Dunwall with, the poor man would drop within the minute.

There was a future where Martin pulled at Havelock's blood, sitting up straight and powerful in his chair as the disgraced admiral twisted in front of him, only to have his mouth wrenched open and his own poison pulled down his throat, and he would have no choice but to swallow it.

There was a future. Martin remained constant in many ways over his lifetime- he remained ambitious, ruthless, and hungry since his youth, but with age came wisdom. And wisdom here dictated that he not over-extend his stay. Behind him was the deceit and violence he had taken part in to have a seat at this table. In front of him was the future where he killed Havelock, a life on the run in the Isles, a new middle-aged man with no name or past sailing into a Tyvian port or hiding out on a Serkonan mountain, with the Empress and Corvo on his heels and Coldridge and the firing squad ever-present above him. Or a future where he didn't draw out this chicanery any more than he had already, any more than it was already willing to be drawn out. He was, he had come to realize, simply tired.

Havelock had started raving about the empire and Pendleton had already fallen heavily onto the map, glass still in hand. Was murder still murder, he wondered, if the intended victim in question was aware and welcome of its' coming? Or was it now suicide, his accepting it?

He wished Havelock a painful death among the rats for talking so long, and for his poor attempt at subtlety. But he suspected the mans' end would involve something more like brains decorating the wall he was standing in front of. He drained the glass, frowned at the taste of Old Dunwall. He closed his eyes and let the tabletop and the spirit world rush up to greet him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like thinking that martin was a) a cute kid growing up and b) had some sort of group of parental figures and that they were all just, a happy outlaw family


	6. Sunny Side Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If she can bring a smile to Corvo's face, then Samuel reckons the future isn't as terribly bleak as it was before.

There seems to be very few happy instances in the lives of anyone at the Hound Pits since Corvo's escape. It's the nasty weather, the plague, how incredibly damn bleak the future in front of them all looks in light of Jessamine's assassination and under the weight of their treason. It doesn't help that the damn rats keep coming around, either.   
Emily's return makes things a little better. She is changed after the death her mother and her imprisonment at The Cat, but even then, she is still a child, and Corvo breathes slightly easier with her around (though he still doesn't trust the three of them, Havelock and Pendleton and Martin, and they in turn all appreciate the knife's edge they continue balance on when it comes to him in particular). Callista, frayed at the edges and overstretched as she is, usually smiles a little softer with each inquisitive flash of Emily's eyes and confident streak of her crayons, and Piero runs about his workshop, chasing after the little empress-to-be and beseeching her not to shoot licks of flame around the whale oil tanks, _please_.  
  
A week or so after her return, she had taken to providing an endless stream of questions for whichever adult was in her immediate vicinity to answer, and sought out Havelock and Samuel to ask questions of pirates and the sea and if they had ever seen leviathans, Martin to quiz him about the workings of the spirit world and The Outsider, and Pendleton to ask him all manner of questions on nobility and parliament; he is more often than not the one who most readily indulges her when it comes to play-courts and royal teas, and one time Corvo trudged down the stairs to see her and Havelock and the rest of the loyalists engaged in some sort of mock pirate's court, with Havelock presiding awkwardly at her side "As he is the highest-ranking among you, and the one with the most experience in these matters."; Someone, it seems, has hidden secrets concerning matters of note from the captain (her) in the form of dodging some of her questions, and as such they will all be made to walk the plank (off the edge of the low sea wall and into the relative safety of Samuel's boat, for the more nimble among them). It's all in good fun, she assures Corvo, and she says he must help her ferret out whose secrets are being hidden, as her royal protector. Pendleton points out that is more the purview of the royal spymaster, and she mills it over for a moment before deciding he is right, and appoints Corvo royal spymaster as well. (Pendleton, he notes with satisfaction, is one of the ones who very nearly tumbles over the edge of the Amaranth into the water)  
  
Of course, books, play-court, questions and drawing only distract her so much- Early one morning Samuel finds her outside of his makeshift hut, shooting strings of fire out of her fists and stomping her foot in aggravation when a particular turn or kick only produces a little puff of smoke.  
He stands in front of his shelter and lights a cigarette, asking "Mind if I ask what it is you're doin' out here, Lady Emily? Awful dangerous to be out by yourself at this hour."  
She hesitates a moment before answering, huffing at another disappointing puff of smoke. It seemed to be the latest one of many. "When those men took me, I bent lightening from my fingers." She frowned and tried again, moving into a stance he was sure Corvo had taught her. "I've seen people do it! I want to try it again. I want-" another turn, "I should be able to protect myself, and my subjects." She went through a few more stances, a few more streams of fire, before turning to him.  
"Corvo can blow things up with his mind, and I can fire bend but I can't do _that_."  
"We all have our talents, Lady Emily. They just take some time and patience to master. I'm sure once all of this is over, Corvo'll find you someone to teach you."  
"I want Corvo to teach me," She said.   
"Then I'm sure he will." Samuel smiled as she went back to trying. The sun was barely over the horizon now, and a few moments later Corvo emerged from inside the pub. Emily runs to him, asking him to watch her fire bend (he does), can he teach her how to shoot lightening? (he shakes his head), can he teach her how to blow things up like he does? (another shake of his head), and he helps her through stances and katas, straightening her spine here, shifting a leg there, reminding her to keep her breathing strong and steady with a pat to her back and demonstrating on his own. He works through exercise after exercise with her, until she's shifting through the stances on her own and the fire from her hands becomes more focused, more purposeful.   
The end of their impromptu training is signaled by a loud rumble from her belly.

Samuel leans against his hut and watches them with a smile before stubbing out his cigarette and following them in for coffee. Callista and Lydia are already at work preparing breakfast and lesson plans, no doubt; Wallace fussing about the state of things and Cecilia setting out plates and mugs of coffee. Emily slides into a booth next to Corvo, rattling off seemingly endless questions about bending, will he teach her to fight, did he like the drawing she left him. One by one, the others slip in and out of the pub to collect coffee and breakfast and questions or remarks from Emily. She gets half-answers, grunts, and small smiles in return.   
Samuel catches Corvo slipping down into his seat beside her a little, grinning into his cup as she greets each of them. If she can bring a smile to Corvo's face, then Samuel reckons the future isn't as terribly bleak as it was before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love emily being a happy child and making everyone's day brighter and a lil more awkward


	7. Soap Bubbles (pt 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you know those theories where different realities are described as bunches of soap bubbles floating around with eachother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk im gonna be writing this au for a while probably because i love it

In another time in the multitude of times, there is one were Daud keeps the little empress; The Outsider sees it, watching like he watches all the other ones, as Daud and Billie take her to the abandoned apartment off the shore- it is, funnily enough, always the same apartment. Odd little constants in a sea of variables.

The Pendleton Twins come up, followed by a couple of poor servants hauling a chest up behind them, to the small room where Daud and Billie are in full whaling attire, waiting with little Emily Kaldwin,who is sedated and snoring on the bed near them. Billie's thinking on the unpleasant future that awaits her with the conspirators. Daud is suspiciously silent in his thoughts. When Custis and Morgan come through the door, The Outsider could feel the distaste coming off of him in waves; Billie too, in all honestly.

 

The question, ultimately, was this: Was the amount of coin paid _really_ worth it, for the ruination not just of Gristol but this _child_ , caught unfairly in the petty games of men? Not just coin, too; elixir, and lots of it. Half already in their possession, and half on the way now.

 

And little Emily Kaldwin snoring away to the right of them.

 

The chest is opened, the coin and elixir presented, and Billie is picking Emily up from the bed when Daud stops her with a wave of his hand.

 

The answer to the question, this particular go-around, was this: No, it was not.

 

The twins treat this turn of events with the same impetuousness and self-righteous indignity that the rich treat all these sorts of hiccups with. These are not men who are used to being told 'no', or who are used to any difficulties that coin will not remove. They lack true strength, and true vision. Daud says as much. They lack conviction- and up until now, he did too. That part he leaves out.

 

The Pendleton twins end up dead on the floor, dying choking on their own blood with their servants, and Daud calls the extra few whalers he brought with him down from the roof to carry the chest. Billie was going to have words for him when they got back, he knew it. The Abbey and the Watch would be leaning on them more than ever; but Emily Kaldwin was a powerful little girl, and she deserved more than to just languish in a flophouse at the behest of evil men.

 

"-most shortsighted, unplanned, _stupid_ decision I think I've seen you make-" Billie had started pacing around his office when they got back, after they placed Emily in one of the drier beds with Thomas and Elanor to watch after her. He was trying his best not to participate in the conversation, choosing to distract himself with other contracts instead. It didn't work particularly well when Billie decided to snatch a sheaf of them out from in front of him, gouging a long trail with his pen through the pages.

 

"You know that Burrows and Campbell will lean the full weight of the Watch and the Abbey against us? You've painted even bigger targets on all of our backs. Did you even think of that!? They know who we are, Daud!"

"I am well aware of the consequences of my actions, Billie, _thank you_ -" He snatched the papers back. "Which is why anyone who disagrees with them is free to leave."

"I'm not going to leave." She came to lean against the desk, staring out through the glass of the doors and down the hallway, where vague shapes were coming and going. She spoke slowly, chewing over the words. "I think this is the most reasonable decision you've made since taking this job. Not handing over the empress was a dangerous decision, but-" She sighed. "-it's the only decision you've made in the past few weeks that hasn't been spineless."

"A relief to you and the others, I'm sure." Daud dropped the ruined contracts into the trash. He'd have to get them signed again, if any of their clients would even want to do that after this week. "She starts training tomorrow afternoon. I expect you to be there."

"I have the Clayton job to finish."

"Let the others handle it. I need you here for her."

Billie sighed, muttered an affirmative and headed to the door before turning back.

"This will do nothing to make things right with Corvo or to make up for Jessamine." She paused before speaking again. "And it won't make _him_ notice you. You know that, right?"

"I do."

She nodded and left.


	8. Soap Bubbles (pt 2)

Emily woke up the next afternoon to an empty half-room and a stranger, a glass of water shoved into her hand and a bowl of oatmeal spooned slowly into her mouth. It all went smoothly in theory- in practice, there was lots of kicking and screaming. The floorboards ended up scorched, dishes were broken. She was dragged to the training room covered in spilled oats.

The whalers left with her- Thomas, still, and Elanor, because Daud thought she had a more motherly demeanor than the others- had tried at first to walk with her to the training room before resorting to more drastic measures. She ended up being carried, and Thomas and Elanor looked a little worse for wear and singed around the edges. They set her down, Elanor patting her shoulder to get her to step closer to where Daud was standing. He noticed that she looked like she had been forced to eat a bag of lemons. Her arms were crossed, and she was fuming. Quite literally, with smoke rising up out of her nostrils. He wasn't quite sure what to say. He was sure Billie was grinning behind him.

 

"I hope you're well-rested," That seemed like the best thing to start with. 'Good Morning Your Majesty' seemed too awkward. "You'll begin training today-"

 

"Where's Corvo?" Little spits of fire shot up from around where she held her hands in right fists by her side.

"The Lord Protector will- he'll be along shortly. For right now-"

"I want to see Corvo!"

"We can't-"

"I don't care! _I want to see Corvo!_ "

She had flames coming out of her mouth now, and for a moment Daud thought she was going to start hurling lightening again. For a moment, he wondered if he had made a good choice- most of the whalers had come to him when they were five years Emily's senior, _at least_. He was out of his depth.

"We have to wait for Corvo," Billie stepped out to his side. "He'll be by soon, but for now he asked us to help you."

"No he didn't!" Emily snapped back. "I'm not _stupid_ \- you killed my mother. Corvo wouldn't ask _you_ to take care of me."

"Maybe he didn't- but we're still here to help you." Billie reasoned. Or tried. Distraught ten year olds weren't exactly her department either.

 _"I don't want your help!"_ Emily's fist flew forward; this time it threw lightening with it. Billie stepped in front of Daud, redirecting it up and knocking a good bit of plaster and lumber from the ceiling.

 

The rest of the day went something like this:

Daud and Billie trying to reason with Emily, each attempt ending with Emily demanding to see Corvo, threatening them with troops, with some fire and lightening thrown in towards the end for good measure. She eventually managed to wear them out enough to run out of the training room, and Daud had half a mind to let her just go. Become the weeper's problem, for all he cared. Billie offered to go after her.

"She did see you kill her mother," She pointed out when he first told her _no_. He acquiesced after that particular point.

 

Billie found her struggling in the arms of one of the patrolmen; she had almost gotten all the way down the hall. She was put down with a wave of Billie's hand, and the patrols dismissed for now. Billie decided to plop down on the floor, stretching and pretending to pay Emily very little mind; she was currently preoccupied with more fuming, staring Billie down and looking like she was almost on the verge of tears. Billie couldn't blame her for not listening, for running off- a strange man appears out of thin air, stabs your mom, kidnaps you, and suddenly has a change of heard and decides not to give you over to the rats who orchestrated the whole thing. To train you. The whole scheme sounded ridiculous.

 

"He's not _that_ bad, you know," Billie broke the silence. "Daud. I mean, it's not like he isn't _awkward_. Or bull-headed. Or mean sometimes. But he's not a bad person."

"Yes he is." Emily sniffed. "He's _terrible._ "

"I know this is… difficult. But you don't have to see him if you don't want to, you know. It's not like he can tell you what to do- you're not a whaler."

"Then I want to leave."

"Alright. Go," Billie motioned out the window. "There's weepers, and river krust, and a real nasty school of hagfish around- everywhere, really- _and_ the rats-" She looked over to see Emily looking slightly less determined than before. "But you're a powerful bender, right? And I'm sure Corvo's looking for you just like you're looking for him." A bold faced lie- they've been watching him in Coldridge. "You'll be fine."

 

To Emily's credit, Billie didn't think she'd actually do it- but the little empress turned on her dirty heel and strode the other way- the wrong way, but Billie wasn't going to mention that- to find her way out. She waited until Emily was out of sight and followed her, hidden on top of bookcases and rafters. All the whalers that would get in Emily's way were assuaged by a wave of Billie's hand when they saw her, and eventually, after much struggling and a scraped knee, Emily had managed to wriggle her way out of their base in a way, falling through a hole in one of the floors into an area that was (thankfully) less infested with hagfish than the rest of th place. She swam under the rotten floorboards and out into the river, with enough splashing to draw even the dead to her. She's watching carefully as Emily struggles up a heap of scrap and onto an old sidewalk when Daud appears next to her.

"What are you doing?" He frowned. Still frustrated from earlier.

"Letting her go. Now hush, or she'll hear you," Billie waved him off.

"There's a nest of river krust past the corner." Billie remembered that particular nest. It was a nasty one.

"Let her go," They blinked to the adjacent roof. Emily peeked around the corner below them. "I was fine when I was her age, she will be too."

"You weren't raised in a tower."

"Then go talk to her." Daud sighed, but stayed where he was. "I'll bring her back when she's done. She'll be safe."

There was a slight rustling sound and smell of ozone hung in the air as Daud left, blinking back to base to do whatever else he needed. Below her, Emily was ducking behind a low half-wall to avoid the krust before turning the corner and shooting a stream of fire at it. The water around the nest evaporated, some of the acid and steam blowing back and hitting her arm. She yelled, ducked back behind the wall and waited for the pain to subside. Bille kept an eye out for weepers- they do, after all, grab as well as spit filth. A couple, off in the distance; one another block down, crumpled under an old rusted stair. Easily dispatched with a well-aimed bolt, and the young empress would be none the wiser.

 

Emily almost made it as far as the refinery; she stopped a building short, at a warehouse with half of the floor fallen in; the hole was swarming with plague rats, illuminated by the whale oil that had leaked out of the tanks next door. The whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen- a fire would send them all up. The rats could eat her alive. She could double back, but there was nowhere else to go from there. She was getting tired- the first river krust she had eliminated had been a little sloppy, but at least it was also a little thought through.

While she was thinking, more and more of the rats became alerted to her presence, little pink noses pointing up at her.

Billie decided that now was probably a good time, blinked down beside her and whisking her back up to the roof of the building. She was shaking, and still more than a little soaked through.

 

"You've done very well." Emily didn't move to acknowledge her. "But it's time to go back now."

"You were never going to let me leave, were you?"

"No. But," She shrugged. "You did need to get out, at least for a little bit."

"I want to leave for real."

"I know."

 

When they make it back to the base, Emily says she wants to see Daud. Billie escorted her to the office. Daud was busy burying himself in paperwork again, mumbling something to a whaler that blinked up to hand him another sheaf. Emily glances up at Billie for a moment before walking up to his desk. He acknowledges her with a glance before going back to scribbling something else out.

"I-" Emily pauses for a moment before looking up at him. "I understand I can't go back to Corvo right now. And I know it's your fault." Something undecipherable flickers across Daud's face. "But I can't go anywhere else. So I guess- I guess I'll stay. For now." She falls quiet before quickly adding, "So I guess you can train me. For now."

Daud looks back to his papers for a moment, pretending to consider.

"Training is at five each morning. I expect you to be there." She stands there for a moment, unsure of what to do.

"You should probably be going. It's already getting dark," He glanced back down at her. "You've been out all day, haven't you? Dinner might be in order before bed. And some dry clothes," He glanced up at Billie.

 

They followed Daud's suggestions: Drier clothes, pulled to size around her with belts before trampling down to their ramshackle, equally-as-damp kitchen for a hastily pulled together meal. They ate in silence before tossing the dishes with the others piled in the sink. Thomas was supposed to be on kitchen duty, she was _fairly_ sure. Either way- by the time they finish and are walking back to the room they had put Emily in, she was rubbing her eyes sleepily, the silence interspersed with yawns. Billie watched her crawl into bed, rousing some of the other recruits as she burrowed underneath the blanket. She waited until it seemed Emily was asleep before leaving- her own exhaustion had caught up with her.

There was something particularly difficult about this whole situation, about becoming stand-in guardians after destroying the real ones. She wanted to bathe, she wanted to sleep. She went to find Daud instead. He had work for her, no doubt. More papers, debriefings after missions, allocating resources. The clerical work that seems to perpetually spill out around the edges, despite how much of it Daud has been burying himself under recently.

She passed the evening in Daud's office, hacking away at their jungle of accounts and expenses with him. It all seemed a little strange, she thought. Looking after Emily now. She decided to take it as a good sign, one that Daud's recent moods and killing Jessamine hadn't gotten the best of him. That he still had some spine.

 

The thought made her chuckle. There was no one in Dunwall who would even question Daud's emotional or mental fortitude, too afraid of what he could do- what they _thought_ he could do, what they thought he was- too afraid of him dropping them off of Kaldwin's bridge, or perhaps hexing them to doubt- except for his own whalers, those closest to him.

Eventually they said goodnight, and she trudged past the night patrols to her room. Morning would be here too soon, with loud recruits and hopefully a hot mug of coffee in its wake.

 

Unfortunately, Billie got the coffee. It was pitifully weak. She dropped as much cream in it as she dared and drank it as fast as she could before hurrying to the training room, where Daud was already waiting. Whalers soon stumbled in behind her, the older ones pulling out dummies and training swords and bows, the younger ones traipsing in after; the more rowdy ones trading jibes and pushing against each other to puff themselves up, the quieter ones towards the back, looking overwhelmingly unsure of themselves. Emily came in with the quieter group, looking for all the world like she would much rather be anywhere else in it.

While the older ones started on their own sets, Billie and Daud addressed the younger, newer recruits. They'd start with basic stances, before pairing up, moving to hand-to-hand combat. Some of the older children snickered. Daud was familiar with their ilk- over-confident, with under-developed or merely average abilities. He made sure they felt the most sting from the different exercises- "If you're good enough, you should know what you're doing." Most of them left with grumbling, their bruised egos trailing behind them.

Emily and the quieter ones did not. The Empress-To-Be did little better than her compatriots, only barely conceding to follow Daud and Billie's instruction- and even then, they seemed more inclined to Billie than Daud- but she had kept pace. She refused to look Daud in the eye the whole time, only glancing at Billie when she called her over to critique her stance. When they paired up for that days final practice, she had struggled a little with her opponent- a boy slightly older than she was who hadn't spoken a word since he had come to them- before tripping him up. They shook hands afterwords, before he shuffled off with the rest of them to eat. Emily stayed behind a moment before following.


	9. Oak Trees and Small Mercies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Samuel Beachworth went to sea to forget a hopeless love. He succeeded.
> 
> The sea does not cure all ills. Spirits might.

_Samuel Beechworth went to sea to forget a hopeless love._

_He succeeded._

 

Samuel's quest to forget had been born of many things- desperation, for one. Some young foolishness, for another. Maybe a smattering of ill-advised wanderlust. It had all culminated his tours with the navy- from Gristol to Morley to Serkonos to Tyvia- where they had made port for a week before departing for open ocean again. Their ship had, of course, gotten stuck during the night in the ice drifts. The lights of a fleet of Ice Breakers was visible on the horizon, competing with stars for command of the night sky in the absence of the moon. They were propelled slowly along by Tyvia's navy water benders. The water benders in their own fleet were making pitifully slow progress- there wasn't enough of them, probably, and the new moon did nothing to help.

Samuel and some of the others were huddled together with one of the fire benders, rubbing their hands and tapping their feet impatiently. Only the Admiral seemed unaffected- Havelock paced impatiently over the decks and through the halls, snapping occasional questions at any of the men who scrambled into his way before pacing somewhere else.

"He's probably itching to get back to open ocean," The firebender holding the flame they were around remarked. His name was Williams, if Samuel remembered right. "We're so close to it." He looked vaguely uncomfortable at the notion.

"Can't blame 'im," Another man spoke up. "Been a' sea so long."

Samuel peeked over the edge; A waterbender was kicking the side of the ship in frustration.

"We shouldn't even be out here." Williams spoke up again. He looked around conspiratorially. "You know what they say about this time of the month, right?It's when spirits cross over."

"Tha' horseshite again?" Another man spoke up. Samuel knew him- a conscript from Morley named Cassidy. "Ther' ain't no spirits comin' ta' ge' us, Will."

"It's true! This is when spirits visit our world, and witches come out from the wastes."

"Listen to 'im," Cassidy nudged Samuel, "Tha man'll have us cowerin' a' shadows in our beds. An' ya' think tha's why the Admiral's cagey too? Time a' the month, huh?" A few of the other men snickered with him. "Whad'ya think, Sam? You believe all this spirit crap?"

"Dunno," Samuel shrugged. "World's a strange place. You never quite know with spirits, I guess."

They all huddled closer fo a second, swapping stores about witches and spirits on the ice. Eventually, one of the waterbenders pushed himself back up over the edge, pulling his coat around himself and mumbling.

"Cold?" Williams smirked.

"Fuck off." The man shuffled back inside. Williams shrugged, glancing out over the ice before sniffling.

"Last call, gentlemen. It's about time for a guard change, anyway."

They all shrugged and tried to grab a little more warmth from the fire before turning to leave, until Samuel and Williams were the only people left.

"You goin' back inside any time soon?" Williams asked.

Samuel shook his head and pulled out a cigarette from his pocket.

"Nah. Think I'll stay out here a bit longer. Can I grab a light, though?"

Williams let the fire die down from his palm to his thumb. Samuel lit his cigarette, leaning back against the railing.

"Gonna be okay in this cold?"

"I'll be fine without you, if that's what you're worried about."

"Hey, you're old." Samuel rolled his eyes.

"Not that much older than you, if I recall right."

Williams laughed and turned to leave.

"Later, Samuel."

Samuel tipped his cigarette at his as he left. "Thanks for the fire."

The new patrol was starting to make rounds, more waterbenders grumbling as they vaulted over the side and firebenders letting other men huddle around their own flames. An officer shouted orders somewhere on one of the upper decks. Samuel looked back over the ice.

The other ships had made slightly more progress than they had; the Tyvian fleet had grown slightly closer. The sound of ice breaking started to carry across the way. Looking over the ice was… strange. Tyvia was almost its own world, snow-packed and barren. He had heard stories of the prisons and the armies here- there was no penalty for desertion, or trying to escape your jailers. People died before they got very far. The land delivered its' own justice.

His eyes and thoughts turned to the stars. He had heard the same tales Williams had: _Moonless nights are nights when spirits come back to roam our lands, when witches wander and oracles read the heavens. Be wary the voices at your back, the faces in the water. These nights are never truly as they seem._

He looked down the side of the ship again. The waterbenders had moved to focus on the bow at this point. As he watched the ice below, he could almost see shapes moving in the ice. He squinted for a better look, leaned further over the rail. The shapes moved more urgently then, writhing faster and faster until they revealed a face. It was a woman's, eyes closed and hair rolling as if she was floating in water. She opened her eyes, and when she spoke it sounded as clear as if she was standing in front of him, calling his name and laughing. It's a voice he recognizes, right out of a memory almost forgotten.

_You found me again!_

He should leave- go below deck where he would have a drink, play a game of cards with the others, rest for the next day-

_You found me again, Samuel-_

He jumped back from the railing, his cigarette drooping severely from his lips- the stars were some comfort, twinkling reassuringly until he looked back out across the ice.

She was there again, in her day dress, standing on the ice. If she spoke again he couldn't hear; her gaze was unwavering, and she stood watching him from the frozen plane. He glanced about, but no one else seemed to see her.All preoccupied with their own conversations, or their own illusions, maybe.

He stubbed the cigarette out and hurried below deck; although he didn't look back, he could feel the spirits eyes watching him.

 

They landed next in Serkonos, on the northern side of the island (it was all very southern to him, though- hot and sticky). They broke free of Tyvia's ice flats after two days, all of them relieved to be back to open water, only to hear that their next destination would be the rocky coast of the south.

"Better n' freezing our balls off," Williams shrugged.

"Yeah, we'll be sweaten' 'em off instead!" Someone else yelled.

 

They were given a days worth of shore leave, and he traipsed off the ship with the others. It wasn't Karnaca, or even Cullero, but it was bustling enough. Music was pouring out of store windows and taverns and citizens were dancing and milling about on their late afternoon breaks. They ate, drank, some of the others started their carousing a little early. He declined to stay after a while, in favor of making his way down the main thoroughfare. The town eventually faded away, replaced by houses interspersed with jungle, and then the other way around.

When he stopped, the road was empty and the lights from the last house had disappeared behind the bend. On one side there were some scrappy looking shrubs before the ground dropped off into an ocean cliff. To the other was what had captured his attention: dense, green forrest. After a moment, he left the road.

The further he got into the forrest, the more the trees seemed to part for him. He traipsed over rotting logs and ducked leafy branches, slipped across moss covered rocks by a creek and-

"You!"

He shuffled to a stop and looked around.

"Hey, you! Yes you!"

Up in one of the branches was a monkey, crouched over him and tail flicking back and forth.

"You can't be here!"

He managed to blurt out 'what,' blinking and looking around him.

"You can't be here!" The monkey yelled again.

"I don't know how to get back," He looked back up.

"Leave him alone!" Another voice chimed in. There was something zipping around the monkey's face, some sort of bug. "Leave him alone, he's lost!"

The monkey promptly snatched the bug out of the air and ate it.

Samuel turned and left.

The rest of the way was packed with roots that rippled under his feet and creatures that chattered as he passed. The whole place had an air of- he didn't know. He couldn't quite place it.

Eventually he came to a small clearing- A place where a tree had grown so large that the others seemed to shrink away from it. None of the animals had followed him here, none of the insects sang.He circled the trunk until he saw a hollow on the other side of it. Just big enough for a man to walk into, and beckoning _him_ to walk into it. As he approached it, the already unnatural stillness became even more so, and the closer he got the easier he could see- something was already inside of it, swaying.

Step.

Sway.

Step.

Sway.

Step.

The creature in the tree spoke to him:

_I know you_.

He didn't respond, but stopped, and watched.

_I know you, Samuel._

He was back on the ship- she was out on the ice-

_I know the woman you loved._

The thing in the tree turned, and there was her face, still round and beautiful, brilliant smile and bright eyes peeking out from behind the locks of hair that were swaying in front of it.

_You found me again._

He stumbled backwards, very nearly tripping over a branch, and the thing followed him- long and oily out of the tree until it was perched over him.

"Who are you?"

_I am many things._

Her face melted away and was replaced by another- a man this time, one he had grown up with.

_I am many people._

The next face was one he didn't recognize- if it was to be called a face at all, a metal mishmash of wires and gears and glass pulled together to form a skull.

_You have come across the oceans and into my home. Why?_

"It just- I don't know." It was true, he hoped the spirit knew it was true. "I started walking and- and I ended up here."

_So few humans cross the bridges between their world and the world of spirits before their time._

"Am I- Am I dead?"

_Ha ha! You are dead as much as I am living- no, there is no death for you here. As there is no life for me there._

"Was that you on the ice? In Tyvia?"

The creature paused. Its face had cycled back to hers again, but something was different in the eyes. Colder. Beadier.

_Does that matter?_

"…No, I suppose it doesn't."

They regarded each other for a few more moments before the creature spoke again.

_You come to this place before you are meant to; do you know where you walk?_

"The spirit world."

_The place that connects all worlds- human, spirit and void, tethered together in this tree._

He looked up- it seemed, upon first and closer inspection, to be a regular tree- old, perhaps, moss covered and still a lively green, but unmoving. Captured just past its prime.

_It is to here that you will return when you die, and from here the void will consume the worlds. Not many humans see it and return alive._

"I wish to return to my world, if I'n able."

_Worry not- this is merely part of your journey. The forest- and I- reflect all things. We show those who wander here what they love, who they lost. It shows you what needs to be seen- and you see the face of a hopeless love. Why?_

"I don't know," He shrugged. "I was trying to forget."

The spirit regarded him again, still wearing her face. Eventually, it spoke.

_You may give the memory, in exchange for taking something in return._

He considered for a moment before asking, "What would you have me do?"

_Take a leaf from these branches, and an acorn from the ground. Plant them on a distant shore, under a new moon. Do this, and you will forget your hopeless love._

"That's all?"

_It is a small price to pay. Others give lives, other give emotion, and others their faces._

Samuel stood and looked up at the canopy. There was a branch that had come within arms reach. He pulled a leaf, broad and green and thin between his fingers from it before turning to the ground to find and acorn resting beside his shoe.

_You will return unharmed._

It retreated back into the tree, swaying in its hollow again. Samuel stood up and dusted off his pants- more for the sake of propriety than any real need- before turning. The flora around him had parted, showing him what he assumed was a path back. He glanced back into the hollow. The metal skull was watching him, peeking out from the shadows. He turned, and without another look back he walked the path out. It was a surprisingly short time until he recognized the road he had been on, the lights from a nearby home twinkling, beckoning him back.

Before he started back, he turned and observed the treelike, stepping back to where he was just in the foliage. The forest path had closed behind him, and what remained was Serkonan jungle on a hot night- dark, dangerous.

He didn't spent much time staring back into the trees before getting back on the path and finding his way into town again. Houses became more plentiful, then the town swallowed him up again- it was a lively night- and eventually he came back to the docks.

Samuel would wait until the next new moon they were docked- in Morely, this time- before walking out to the edge of a field. There he planted the still-green leaf and the acorn, patting wet earth around them gently before returning again to the ship. He found he could no longer remember her- she was just there, her smile, her laugh, on the edges of his memory, lost in a crowd of just-there smiles and laughs. Eventually, even that faded as well, and he was left with a small sort of notion in his chest. And then, even that disappeared.


End file.
